German Residential Prices Rose 1.9% in Q2 as Offices Kept Falling

The vdp index shows German residential prices up 1.9% year on year in Q2 2026, while offices fell 1.2% — pulling the all-property index slightly negative.

German residential property prices rose 1.9% year on year in the second quarter of 2026 and 0.3% on the quarter, according to the vdp index published on 10 August. The all-property index, which includes commercial, tells a different story: up 1.3% on the year but down 0.1% on the quarter, dragged there by offices at minus 1.2% annually and minus 1.5% quarterly. Anyone quoting "German property prices fell in Q2" is quoting the commercial half of a market that has split in two.

The vdp series is compiled from transaction data supplied by more than 700 German credit institutions, which makes it one of the earliest reliable reads on the quarter — the federal statistics office will not publish its own Q2 house price index until September, so no official cross-check exists yet.

Apartments lead, houses follow

Within residential, condominiums rose 2.6% year on year and 0.5% on the quarter — the strongest sub-segment. Single-family houses gained 2.0% annually and 0.4% quarterly; multi-family investment blocks 1.6% and 0.3%. Retail, the other commercial category, slipped 0.2% on the year and 0.7% on the quarter, a milder decline than offices but a decline nonetheless.

The pattern is consistent with a market where the residential recovery that began after the 2022-23 correction is grinding forward at low single digits rather than accelerating, and where the repricing of offices has not finished.

The rent side is moving faster than the price side

Newly agreed rents on multi-family residential rose 3.2% year on year — comfortably ahead of the 1.6% price growth on the same asset class. Office rents rose 2.7% even as office capital values fell, and retail rents 1.5%.

That gap between rent growth and price growth is the number that matters for anyone buying German residential for income. Germany's problem as an investment market has never been risk; it has been yield. Glopra's data puts the German average at $3,650 per square metre on a gross rental yield of 3.42%, one of the thinnest in our coverage, and an effective non-resident rental tax of 24.35% takes that closer to 2.6% net. When rents grow at double the rate of prices, that ratio repairs — slowly, but in the right direction.

Our German price trend of 1.4% over the past twelve months sits just under the vdp residential figure, which is what one would expect from two indices with different baskets and reference dates. Our bubble score for Germany is 51, in the moderate band.

Sources: vdpResearch, Q2 2026 property price index (10 Aug 2026) https://www.vdpresearch.de/uneinheitliche-entwicklung-der-immobilienpreise/; Presseportal / vdp https://www.presseportal.de/pm/29608/6330014

Market data: Germany